Friday, May 7, 2010

This eclectic exhibit displays a variety of mediums from artists all around the world, including Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Sweden, as well as stateside artists from Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, along with several Milwaukee favorites.

Erie, Penn.’s Suzanne Proulx sends an intriguing sampling of her inventive sculptures in the form of Dust Bunnies. Seven life-size bunnies, each with its own personality and carefully constructed from dryer lint, wire and thread, come to life in Jensen’s front window. On another table Proulx casts 14 evocative hands from new and used soap resembling marble. All of the hands have been modeled from people in her own family, including a newborn’s tiny fingers. In a separate work close by, Proulx presents baby birds wriggling from oranges in realistic sculptures titled Hatchlings, another artwork that tweaks the familiar into fantasy.

Paintings appear on the gallery walls with acrylics by Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design graduate Huey Crowley and watercolors by the Netherland’s Pi eter

Kusters. Milwaukee’s Santiago Cucullu and Kevin Giese provide unique watercolor and graphite images while San Francisco’s Francesca Pastine delicately cuts the mutual funds page from The New York Times. These fragile newsprint webs may be positing an opinion on financial success or ruin.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Creativity and cultural expression find sources of inspiration in surprising places, and within unexpected materials. One might say that the truly creative life is one lived in such a way that ordinary things, or those not commonly considered ‘artful’ are suddenly seen as being sublime. Certainly many types of art can provide a glimpse into this creative way. But works of collage and assemblage might do it best. So, with GUIDEBOOK Manifest sets out to assemble an exhibit which explores such work - an exhibit that may in fact serve as a guidebook to a creative, enlightened way of seeing and being in the world.

For this exhibit 207 artists submitted 470 works for consideration. Eighteen works by the following 13 artists were selected for presentation in the gallery and catalog.